Given the utter lack of non-biblical evidence that Jesus existed (there aren't any sources that mention anything about him outside the Bible that appeared until after the Bible was written), any conclusions of what he did or didn't do in his life should really be regarded as fanfiction.

Josephus didn't start writing until after the first Gospels were already written. He wasn't even born until after the alleged execution date for Jesus so he certainly couldn't have witnessed any of the events described in them.

The issue is that there's nothing that he could have written about Jesus that he didn't get from the Gospels- his writings started long enough after the Gospels were written that they'd already been circulating for decades by that point. In other words, he's not a non-biblical source of information- that would require something that was written before any of the Gospels.

If I'm understanding crocoduck_hunter correctly, he's not claiming that the lack of non-Biblical sources is reason to question the existence of Jesus the man, just that it's not sufficient reason to make any conclusions about what he did during his life.

If I'm understanding crocoduck_hunter correctly, he's not claiming that the lack of non-Biblical sources is reason to question the existence of Jesus the man, just that it's not sufficient reason to make any conclusions about what he did during his life.